Sorry for the hiatus, but this week has been extremely busy
for me.
On Saturday I went to the Zone Artistique Temporaire, a street art festival featuring all
kinds of crazy performers. The first
thing that I saw was a group called Urbaphonix.
They are five guys who go around with attachable microphones and amplify
random objects on the street and then “play” them like instruments: walls, fences,
street lampposts, a kid’s zipper, a bicycle… it was quirky and amazing. The next thing I saw was two people rappelling
halfway down a 20 story apartment building and then performing an intricately
choreographed dance 90 degrees from the building surface. I also saw a number of musical acts and a
hilarious British juggling group called “Smashed”.
On Sunday, my host family took me to an amazing Chinese
buffet called Ô Panda and I ate so much Chinese food. My host mom had gone away for the weekend and
came back that afternoon. She noticed me
coughing rather excessively that evening and booked me a doctor’s
appointment. I’ve been a little bit sick
since the Friday before last, but just thought it was a cold. Two days ago I went to the doctor and
discovered that I have had bronchitis. I
am on an antibiotic now and I am already feeling worlds better.
What has really been occupying me this last week are
exams. This week is exam week at the
Université Paul Valéry and I have been very busy studying. This is also my last week at my internship,
so I have been occupied writing my last three radio show episodes. I have since finished two and have but one
more left to write for tomorrow.
Yesterday I recorded and edited the second to last episode of my Irish
music show by myself, a fait-accompli of which I am proud. I will record and edit the last episode
tomorrow.
In my History of Languedoc-Roussillon class, my teacher had
told the class that if we liked the grade that we had earned on the paper we
had written earlier (the huge paper on Gaston Crémieux that I had written so
much about after working on for several consequetive weekends), that she would
accept that as the final grade for our class.
The problem was that we would not find out the grade until Monday and
the exam was on Tuesday. So I went on
Monday and discovered that I had earned a 16 on the paper, which is a high-A
grade even for French students, disregarding the weighted scale that is used
for American students. So I was very
pleased with that. After that on Monday
I had my Phonetics exam, which went well enough. I thank Dr. Palka for preparing me for it
with my phonetics course last semester at CMU.
I already told you about what passed at my internship on
Wednesday, but afterword I went to the train station and ordered most of the tickets for my
vacation. After that, I enjoyed the
sunshine in the backyard as I studied for my cinema exams. Lulu, the family dog, showed her appreciation
of my presence in the low reclining chair by throwing herself on top of me and
going to sleep. She is not a
pocket-sized dog, either, but I was glad for the comfort.
Today I had three exams.
The first was on Japanese cinema.
I loved the class and have so many movies to watch this summer with
Grace. I highly recommend Akira
Kurosawa, who made a number of really great historical pieces, including
several samurai films that would inspire great Western adaptations, such as Yojimbo (which you will recognize from
Sergio Leone’s not-quite-legally adapted A
Fistful of Dollars) and The Seven
Samurai (put in the American West as The
Magnificent Seven). I then had my
grammar exam, which consisted of writing a synthesis and was no problem. Finally, I had the exam from my cinema
lecture class. That class was a
nightmare because the professor really didn’t care about the course and
insisted on mumbling into the microphone while chewing gum and generally being
unhelpful when we poor Americans asked for help. But, I am pretty sure that I got enough of
the answers in order to pass the exam, especially once it is averaged with my
Japanese cinema exam. I am taking the
course pass/fail, so I have succeeded no matter what.
Today after I class I finished buying the train tickets for
my vacation next week and I have but to book one more hotel. I am excited for it to begin.
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